Manning verdict keeps US power in check

Bradley Manning will always be a hero to some and a villain to others.

Reuters: James Lawler Duggan

Judge Denise Lind's verdict in the Bradley Manning case has struck a blow against the seemingly limitless powers of the US government, writes Ruby Hamad.

There were two losers in the Fort Meade military court today when military judge Denise Lind found Bradley Manning guilty of 19 of the 22 charges against him, including five counts of espionage.

Manning, whose sentencing hearing begins tomorrow, is now facing a sentence of up to 130 years.

But in acquitting Manning of aiding the enemy, by far the most serious charge against him, Lind also struck a blow against the seemingly limitless powers of the US government.

Manning has repeatedly insisted that his intent was not to harm America but to "spark a domestic debate on the role of the military and our foreign policy in general as it related to Iraq and Afghanistan."

His defence portrayed him as an idealist who wanted to change the world, while the government referred to him as an "anarchist hacker" and "traitor" who knew his leaks could potentially be used by Al Qaeda.

Manning will always be a hero to some, a villain to others but, in what likely prompted Lind's verdict, there is no proof that his leaks harmed any Americans in any way. Nonetheless, so determined was the US government to prosecute him on the charge of aiding the enemy, they rejected his initial 10 guilty pleas on other charges in favour of a trial.

The implications of a guilty verdict would have been enormous given that this charge has previously been levelled at those who gave information directly to an American enemy, which Manning did not do.

Essentially, what the government was arguing was that providing any information to a third party (in this case WikiLeaks) that may then wind up in the hands of "the enemy" - whether that was the intention or not - is a crime of the highest treason.

Unsurprisingly, this had journalists across the country nervous. The Guardian's James Ball writes:

This is not so much the beginning of a slippery slope for a democratic nation as a headlong plummet. A guilty verdict would have redefined the media - from outlets such as WikiLeaks to bastions of the establishment like the New York Times - as proxies for the enemy. It would have ended any distinction between a traitor selling military secrets to the highest bidder and someone speaking to a journalist on a matter of conscience and for no reward.

The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) called the charge a clear case of intimidation, while Amnesty International unfavourably compared the US government's failure to prosecute "credible allegations of torture and other crimes under international law" to its pursuit of Manning:

The government's pursuit of the 'aiding the enemy' charge was a serious overreach of the law not least because there was no credible evidence of Manning's intent to harm the USA by releasing classified information to WikiLeaks.

The comparison is a worthy one. In this Salon article writer Tom Engelhardt juxtaposes the US government's refusal to hand over a CIA operative found guilty in an Italian court of kidnapping, to its determined pursuit of another leaker of classified information, Eric Snowden, to the point it was willing to rankle international nerves by diverting and raiding the plane of the head of a sovereign state:

This is simply the living definition of what it means to exist in a one-superpower world for the first time in history. For Washington, the essential rule of thumb goes something like this: we do what we want; we get to say what we want about what we do; and UN ambassadorial nominee Samantha Powers then gets to lecture the world on human rights and oppression.

Of course, the government could not get away with this without a good measure of support from the public. So ingrained is the notion of America's inherent "goodness", Americans, for the most part, accept any deed done in their name as a necessity in the fight against their (evil) enemies.

Nowhere is this more apparent than in the acceptance of Obama's more questionable policies by progressives who railed against the excesses of the Bush administration.

In 2008 Obama campaigned on a promise to reverse Bush's most contentious policies, including ending extraordinary rendition and promising to close Guantanamo Bay. Scoffing that Bush had presented America with "a false choice between the liberties we cherish and the security we demand," candidate Obama promised to "track down terrorists without undermining our constitution and our freedom."

So much more has changed in the intervening years than just the president's hair colour. In his rigorous defence of the NSA surveillance program uncovered by Snowden's leaks, Obama chastised concerned Americans that they were "going to have to make some choices balancing privacy and security".

Far from scaling back Bush's perpetual war, Obama has increased America's unchecked power in expanding the drone program, appointing himself the final word on the "kill list" and, most controversially, including US citizens as amongst those who can be targeted for extra-judicial killing.

It is the willingness of the US government to target its own citizens that most clearly spells the new direction of the world's sole superpower. In this, the government is aided by the public and media's increasing intolerance of dissent, one of the legacies of 9/11. Much of the NSA debate centred around the "traitorous" actions of Snowden, an accusation extended to the journalist who broke the story, with calls for Glenn Greenwald's arrest and NSA agents reportedly joking about "disappearing" him.

If you accept his claims of good intentions, Manning is symbolic of how America imagines itself to be - idealistic, freedom loving, democracy driven - but in reality, the new normal is a culture of self-censorship where you are free to express your opinion as long as it's the right one. For all its exaltation of the first amendment, speaking freely and contentiously can have severe repercussions.

And yet, so certain is the US of its moral standing that it will seemingly accept no rebuke to its power or its tactics in maintaining that power. Whilst today's verdict is devastating for Manning and is likely to deter at least some potential leakers, the refusal of Lind to find Manning guilty of aiding the enemy serves to keep something of a lid on this power.

For now.

Ruby Hamad is a Sydney-based writer and filmmaker. View her full profile here.

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